Using Behavioral Targeting for Political Campaigns

Regulators and lawmakers in Washington are busy thinking about policies related to targeted advertising and privacy. However, they are using online behavioral targeted advertising for their own political campaigns.

They understand the value of individually targeting voters in the web. The web is a place where politicians can communicate with prospect voters regarding specific issues. It is also an avenue for raising funds. Thus, it is very hard for politicians to resist the benefits of this technology, especially since many anticipate this upcoming election to be a very close one.

According to John Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, “online, real-time targeting is a very big deal in this election.” A couple of advertising firms serve advocacy groups and political campaigns include Mixpo and CampaignGrid. These firms are developing cross-platform video capacities for politicians who are putting in a significant amount of dollars to digital media. There are studies showing that already a significant percentage of voters don’t watch live TV, where most of the persuasion ad money of campaigns go.

“Data is the Bedrock”

Sean Spicer, who works for the Republican National Committee as communications director, adds that “data is the bedrock. There is a constant struggle to get the right message out.” As such, panelists are looking for more ways to manipulate more offline and online data, in an attempt to raise donations and heighten engagement among politicians and voters.

Phillips said that “when a consumer goes online, if the cookies line up, you can hit the user with a targeted ad.” The beginning of a campaign is in public lists such as voter registration lists.

Because online ads are highly targeted, a lot of campaign strategists have begin to wonder if television ads, which are often very expensive, are cost-effective. That said, it is expected that 65 percent of all advertisement spending for political purposes will go to these traditional ads.

On a related note, it has been recently revealed that Microsoft and Yahoo are selling personal user data to political campaigns so that pols can target specific voting audiences. It isn’t a coincidence that many campaigns have now become demographic-specific, and third party researches have contributed to data as well to create user profiles detailing retail purchases and income, among others.

Using the Internet to Advance Political Campaigns for Free

Campaign managers are now looking for creative ways to use online advertising avenues, such as YouTube, which allows them to quickly produce air time without having to pay for it. Spicer said that “for literally no dollars, we can make a YouTube ad. You can track it, push it off to [Politico’s] Morning Score and sometimes the cable networks pick it up. That aspect of digital has changed the concept of what you do from an ad basis.”

Online ad spending for the Presidential election is seven times greater than back in 2008. Viewing video habits have changed in particular, and through YouTube, which Google has aptly integrated with its AdWords online ad system, pols can engage voters who view videos online.

Protection of Political Speech

As chacha.com aptly defines, political speech is “a speech that most politicians use to win votes or talk about change.” While the commercial online ad industry is concerned with data use and user privacy, the politicians aren’t concerned about the policies that may emerge regarding the matter. According to Nathan Daschle, Ruck.us CEO, “I don’t know where the line is. People aren’t upset about the publicly available information. What might be uncomfortable are the conclusions we draw about online activities. If that becomes publicly known to other people, then it crosses the line.”

Phillips adds: “Do I lose sleep about whether or not there will be restrictions? No. Political speech is protected.”

Behavioral marking involves the use of personal information to create advertisements that are targeted to individual that exhibited buying signals through internet behavior. It is a revolutionary way on how advertisements should be done to generate greater returns. The promise of consumer behavioral marketing provides a light in the tunnel of darkness of searching ways to survive the fierce competition.

This is the summary of the article written by Toubiana, et al., which proposes a method of online behavioral advertising which doesn’t compromise user privacy. You can get the PDF of the behavioral targeting article here: Adnostic..